


sleep, don't weep

by seekingsquake



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M, non-sexual mutual showering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 11:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9722312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: JJ totally bombs his first skate at the GPF. Isabella isn't worried about the podium, only about her man.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a beta. Sorry for any typos. Point 'em out so I can fix them.

_ And you won’t ever have to worry _

_ You won’t ever have to cry _

_ ‘Cause I’ll be there beside you _

_ To dry your weeping eyes _

 

She watches him sleep.

She’d had to drag him into bed earlier; he’d been so upset that he’d roamed the city late into the night, drifting in and out of bars and clubs until he’d disoriented himself enough that he didn’t put up a fight when she bundled him into a taxi and brought him back to the hotel. Now his brows are furrowed, his jaw is tight, and his body is curled in on itself. Normally he sleeps sprawled out on top of her, unless he’s having bad dreams.

The lowest score of his senior division career. She can’t even remember him ever scoring that low, even in the juniors, though she knows that he must have at some point. He was so completely devastated that his parents didn’t know what to do with him. Alain had stood at the side of the rink, wide eyed and utterly surprised, and Nathalie had just stared over JJ’s shoulder when he had hugged her, hiding his tears in the shoulder of her jacket. “What do I do?” he’d whispered, and nobody had known what to say.

She still doesn’t know how to make it better. Even she’s not used to seeing him cry. JJ isn’t very well suited to sadness, and though sometimes he feels anxious he’s never doubted his ability on the ice before. He doesn’t know how to fail.

His shoulders twist rather suddenly, and he presses his face into the pillow. She’s pretty sure that he’s still asleep, but she scratches her nails comfortingly against the back of his head just to be sure. His posture loosens slightly at her touch. 

They’ve had a maybe unusual relationship over the years. They met back when they were thirteen, and they had only a couple of classes in school together and no mutual friends between them. He was absent a lot in the winter, and no one ever really seemed to know why. When they were fourteen they had more classes together, which is how she learned that his laugh was loud and bright, and he was a diligent student even though he didn’t seem like he was. They exchanged cellphone numbers in order to work together on a group project, and even after he started being homeschooled at fifteen in order to focus more freely on his skating career, they continued to text each other. By the time they were sixteen, they were in love.

He likes to pretend that nothing bothers him, and that everything comes easy, and that skating is as simple as breathing, but. She’s had years to learn better. He feels a lot of pressure, being the first son of two former Olympians and having two siblings that look up to him as both a template and an obstacle for their own skating careers. He doesn’t want to disappoint his family, and he hates feeling like he hasn’t done his very best or tried his very hardest. JJ doesn’t really have an off season, even in the off season, and if he’s not training then he’s throwing himself into his family’s charity work, or observing his sibling’s training, or trying to get more involved with the JJ Style product line.

He doesn’t know how to fail, or how to rest, and she can see him cracking at the edges of his composure. She doesn’t want to wake him, but even if he sleeps through the rest of the night like this he won’t feel rested in the morning. “Jayje?” she murmurs, leaning over his shoulder and pressing her lips to the hard line of his jaw. “JJ, babe.”

JJ grumbles and shifts, but his eyes blink open anyway. “Bells. Morning?”

“Not quite,” she whispers, gently tugging the blanket out from under his chin. “I’m feeling a little antsy. Come shower with me?” 

It’s mostly a lie, but it gets him sitting up. He scrubs his hands over his face and shakes his head a little. “You’re nervous? What about?”

“I don’t know, just...”

It’s enough. He stumbles out of bed and she follows him, her hand on the small of his back herding him into the bathroom. There’s a small nightlight plugged into the wall by the vanity, and it’s bright enough that Isabella doesn’t bother to flick on the bathroom light. She strips out of her tank top and sleep shorts in the dark, and tugs down JJ’s boxers before pulling him into the shower stall. He reaches an arm around her and jerks the knob of the faucet, and the first spurt of water from the shower head is abrupt and ice cold. They both shriek and shiver until he gives the knob another fiddle and the water heats up.

There’s something soul healing in hot water.

JJ stands with his back under the spray, his head hung and his wet hair falling in his eyes. She feels his muscles loosen under her hands, feels his breath against her skin, and then he’s turning them all around so that her neck and chest is being pelted with water and her head is lolled back against his shoulder. He runs his hands over her hips for a few long moments before reaching for the body wash and pouring some into his palm. “Did we pack the loofa with you or with me?”

“Too late now,” she murmurs, leaning heavily against him. “But I think we put it in with the blow drier and my makeup kit.”

He kisses her neck softly, and snorts when he gets water up his nose. She pets at his head as he rubs the soap over her skin. Everything about him is soft like this. He’s so gentle, so quiet, and she wishes that the rest of the world could see him like this. They’d like him if they knew he could be like this, she knows, but. 

JJ wields his confidence like a weapon partly because he never really learned how to socialize outside of high school, and partly because if it’s not smothering his competitors it’s cannibalizing him. When competition season rolls around, the volume of JJ’s voice notches up, his smiles become sharper and toothier, and he suddenly can’t tell the difference between a joking comment between friends and a real insult. He knows his peers don’t like him. Though he knows that he’s Canada’s figure skating prince, he knows that a lot of figure skating fans don’t like him. The animosity wounds him a little, but he feels more secure with them disliking him like this. If he lets himself be soft and they still don’t like him, that would be worse. 

It would never happen, because how could anyone hate him like this? But. It would be worse. So Isabella comforts herself with the fact that she can be as selfish with him as she wants, because no one is fighting her for him anyway. 

He’s moved on from soaping up her body to washing her hair and massaging hard into the base of her neck, and she loves him so much. He can’t stress about his next skate if he’s focused on her, so she tips her head into his touch and groans softly. “Feels good?” he asks her, his voice low and almost drowned out by the rush of the water.

“Feels good,” she sighs, and she knows it’s a manipulation, but he makes it so hard to take care of him. 

Once he’s rinsed her down, he asks her, “Still feeling restless?” and waits for her to shake her head before shutting the shower off. He towels her off and he’s combing some leave-in conditioner into her hair with his fingers when he murmurs, “I’m not gonna be able to get gold tomorrow.”

“JJ...”

“Fuck. I’m not even going to be able to make the podium. You saw how well everyone did today? I’m dead in the water.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Isabella says, wrapping slender fingers around JJ’s wrist. “Just... Skate your best. If you do that, I’m sure you can come back enough to knock some of the others out and get out of last place.”

“Not if everyone else keeps doing as well as they did today.”

“Don’t be so self defeatist. Do what you can, keep your head up, and don’t think about the others. Just focus on you. We both know what you’re capable of.”

There’s a pause. Finally he sighs and murmurs, “You’re right. Okay.”

JJ just wants everything to be perfect. Just wants himself to be perfect. Isabella knows he’ll never get there, because nobody ever does. You can’t be perfect and alive at the same time, you just can’t, and more than anything else in the world Isabella would rather have him alive and fighting and flawed. He needs to learn how to fail. It’s going to hurt him, and it’s going to hurt her watching him, but. He needs to learn, and he will, because even though she’s right so is he. He isn’t going to win gold tomorrow. Probably won’t win anything at all. 

“You don’t need the medal,” she murmurs as she drags him back to bed. “You already have a family who loves you and fiancée who adores you and the potential to be anything you want. You don’t need anything else.”

He kisses her soft and sweet, tucks himself around her, and pulls the blankets up over the both of them. When he falls back asleep, it’s much more peaceful than it had been before. She squeezes his hands and snuggles against him, then finally allows herself to close her eyes. As long as he stays wrapped around her, she knows that he’ll be okay. And on the event that he isn’t, she’ll be there for him. 

 

_ ‘Cause there’s no doubt in my mind _

_ I know what I want to do _

_ And just as sure as one and one is two _

_ I’ve just got to take care of you _

**Author's Note:**

> Title is lyrics from a Damien Rice song, called Sleep Don't Weep, and bookending quotes are from a song called I'll Take Care of You. I don't know who originally sings it, but the version by Aaron Gibson and Sa'Rayah sets me on fire.
> 
> Additionally, I don't know how the GPF works! Are the men's short programs and free skates all done on the same day? I wrote the events taking place with a night between, but. I don't know. If that's right. Because I know nothing at all about skating! (except that Michelle Kwan is a queen and I love her)


End file.
